Dirty Work
by LilLolaBlue
Summary: Sir Guy is a Devil, and he does the Devil's Business well. He and his Whore of Babylon will surely reign in hell. Fire waits for both of them in death. But perhaps? Not yet.
1. The Devil's Own

**Chapter One: The Devil's Own**

**(**_**Author's Note: This fanfic deals with the BBC Robin Hood universe before Season Three, in which pretty much everything about the series changed, and we got a lot of extra characters and stories not in the legends. I have also included some traditional characters from the Robin Hood legend, and I will riff on some of the traditional Robin Hood stories. And there is some fix it. Because, ergh, you need fix it when CANON is OOC! Yes, Sir Guy remains a Magnificent Bastard. But if you don't like him bad…don't read on.)**_

Sir Guy of Gisbourne dismounted from his horse.

He walked, softly, with slow steps, through the high grass, to stand among the burned out, overgrown ruins of a homestead that Sherwood had nearly reclaimed.

He sat down on his haunches, took off his glove, and picked a few blades of the sweet grass the blacksmith had planted, there were so few that had not yet been overwhelmed by the wildflowers and weeds.

His hair, and his clothes, would often smell of that sweet grass; the scent of it, and that of rich, dark Earth, often clung to him for days.

That was what she always smelled of.

But, she was a wild girl, the blacksmith's daughter.

They came from all over Nottinghamshire, though, to the cottage on the edge of Sherwood Forest that Erik Blackthorn, her father before her, had built.

His father before him was called Ragnar, and his father was called Erik Skull-splitter and he was a Dane, who had c0me raiding.

Erik brought a wife to what was then the Danes' realm, and his son, Ragnar, married a woman of Danish blood, and Erik also married a woman of Danish blood.

The blacksmith's daughter was yet a Dane; she had their shrewdness and their wildness in her blood, and their skill with axe and sword, and fire and the hammer in the forge.

The same men who called her wild, and whore and witch, because she was a fine smith, they brought their work to her, because she did the finest work in the Shire; That was why, whatever they thought her, no one denounced her.

To burn.

That, and though he was not yet Lord Gisbourne, they feared young Gisbourne.

He was a cold man with hot blood, and bore a grudge as a man against all those who had shown him cruelty, when he was a boy.

Every man's wife who had said he was a changeling, a son of the Devil, and every man's son or daughter who had jeered him and tormented him and ignored him, and against every man who said it would be a dark day when he was Lord Gisbourne.

But Guy, who had no particular feeling for anyone, save contempt, had feeling for three souls in his father's shire.

He worshipped Marian, the Sherriff's daughter, as a pagan worshipped his goddess of love on a high pedestal.

He hated Robin, the son of Baron Locksley, the Earl of Huntingdon.

And the blackmsith's daughter was the only friend he had in the world; the only soul kindred to his own.

Only she had a smile for him when he passed over her doorstep; only she had a kind word for him that didn't come from obligation.

Filling the doorframe of her smithy, he came like a shadow, young Gisbourne, pale and tall and black-haired, with the wolfish blue eyes of a wily animal.

And though her back was turned to him; she knew the sound of his hobnailed jackboots.

As she worked, one strand, just one long, curly strand of her butter-yellow hair had came loose from the long sloppy braid that came all down her back.

Guy stood close by her, and wound that strand of hair around one of his fingers.

He nuzzled his nose against her neck, and her shoulder and her ear, encircling her waist with his arm, nipping at her ear, finding the nape of her neck to bury his face in her butter-yellow hair.

"I'm working, you wolf." She told him.

"You're not working. Your hammer isn't in your hand."

"Neither is yours. Did you shut the door?"

"No. I don't care, if they all see. Let them look."

She turned around, and her blue eyes were wilder and more wolfish than his.

"The sun's out, today. And the trees are getting green. Let's go into the wood."

"It's still cold out."

"Then make me warm, you son of a bitch!"

She ran out the door, there would be no work, today, tearing her hair loose from the braid.

And all her butter-yellow hair, flying loose in the wind.

Years later, squatting amongst in the ruins of the blacksmith's house, Guy could still hear her laugh.

And he could feel that strand of hair, around his fingers.

Her blue eyes and her white skin, whiter than his, white as milk, and her butter-yellow hair.

The wind was cold, and Sir Guy of Gisbourne's tears were bitter.

The bitter tears of a bad man, who had lost all in his life that was good and true.

And like all bad men must, he cried them, alone.

* * *

Young Guy did not tell his father that he was afraid of thunder and lightning.

Had he a kinder father, he might have, but Guy's father had little kindness in him, and none for his ten year old son.

A particularly loud thunderclap sent young Gisbourne climbing out of the pew and running for some kind of safety.

No one seemed to notice.

The Sheriff's daughter, Marian looked over her shoulder at him, but she didn't leave her pew.

Robin, the Earl of Huntingdon's son smirked at him, and Guy stuck his tongue out.

He found refuge behind a large, forbidding statue and sat there with his legs tucked up absent his chest, and his face against his knees.

"What are you doing?"

It was the blacksmith's daughter.

The wild girl, with the butter-yellow hair.

"Go away."

"No."

She came and sat beside him.

"Don't be afraid. That's just Thor, killing frost giants with his hammer, Mjolnir. I'm not supposed to talk about him, in Church. But if God made everything, He must have made Thor, so I don't think he minds."

"They're Devils, aren't they? The old gods of the Danes?"

"Do you believe that, Guy?"

"I don't believe anything they tell us here. I hate God. He took my mother and left me with my father, and he's a mean old man."

"Don't hate God. He was probably busy doing something else. Hate your father. Everybody else does. My Da says he's a miserable old prick."

Guy laughed.

"He is. You don't have a Mum, either, do you, Jamie?"

"No. I don't."

"But Erik doesn't hate you. Why does my father hate me? Everybody hates me."

"I don't hate you."

"Everybody thinks you're father is crazy, and they say you're a changeling."

"Maybe I am, Guy. Maybe we both are. That's what I thing. What I really think. Your real mother and father? They're faeries, or Elves or …something. Like my Mum is. And someday Thor, or Loki, or the King of The Fairies, or somebody like that will come and get us. And take us home. But they'll have to take my Da, too."

Thunder crashed again, but it didn't bother Guy as much.

"Do you think if I prayed to Thor, he'd throw a thunderbolt at my Da? Just enough to knock him off his feet. To scare him a little."

"Well, Jesus wouldn't. But I'll bet Thor might."

Jamie reached into the pocket of the apron tied over her pain green cotton dress.

"Do you want a little piece of marzipan? My pockets are full of it. Just don't tell my Da."

Guy looked at the bit of cake in Jamie's hand, warily.

She laughed, and her blue eyes laughed with her, making her whole face light up.

"It's not poison."

Guy took it and ate it.

"It's very good."

"I made it. I do all Da's cooking."

Then, the great statue moved and there was Lord Gisbourne, looming over them, his face a mask of disapproval.

"There you are, you little heathen! Come here!"

Lord Gisbourne reached for his son, but Guy scrambled to his feet and grabbing Jamie's hand, he ran to the back of the cathedral, and out the back door.

He didn't know where he was going, only that he was finally running away.

"Come on, Guy! This way!"

They ran, and didn't stop, until they got to the blacksmith's cottage, and smithy, on the edge of Sherwood Forest.

"I'm never going back to him! Ever!" Guy decided.

"Okay. You can hide in our barn. In the hayloft. I'll hide you."

"For how long?" Guy asked.

"I don't know. Forever. Or at least until we're grown."

* * *

Guy stayed hidden in the hayloft for three days, with Jamie bringing him food, three times a day.

Then, on the fourth day, Erik, the blacksmith came and got him, and brought him outside, where his father was waiting.

"Erik, I don't want to go!" Guy howled.

"You can come back whenever you like, young Master Guy."

* * *

Lord Gisbourne locked his son up in his bedchamber, and told him he'd stay there for two fortnights, that the bishop would come in to see him, on Sunday.

The very first night, all three of them came, even Robin.

Robin had got some rope, and he threw it up to the window, and had Guy tied it to something sturdy, and he and Jamie and Marian all climbed up.

After a few days, Robin and Marian both quit visiting, but Jamie came, every day.

She brought him little presents.

A bit of cake, a ring made from the end of a spoon, a pony's horseshoe, a shiny rock, a hard-boiled egg; things like that.

She'd sit there with him and talk to him for hours.

At first, Guy didn't know what to do, but then he started talking to her, too.

He stole a big book from his father's study, hand written and hand-painted.

It was all about gods and faeries and devils and angels and heroes and myths and demons.

They read to each other from it, and talked about running away to live in Sherwood Forest, and go looking for those Faery halls, beneath the hills.

Guy worked up the courage, when the month was almost over, to ask her.

"Jamie, why do you like somebody like me so well?"

"Because you're my friend. I don't have any other friends. Nobody feckin' likes me."

"Nobody feckin' likes me, either. So, why should you want to be my friend?"

"Don't you know about anything, Guy? I mean anything that's important."

"No. I only know the lies they tell us. The ones everyone else is stupid enough to believe."

"Listen. People like you and me have to stick together. They didn't make things for us; they've made things just so for them, and against us. That's the way it is. And it's the way it will always be. If people like us don't stick together? They'll get us. And they'll either kill us, or make us like they are."

"I'd rather die. I would." Guy snorted.

"Me too." Jamie agreed.

"Promise, Jamie."

"Promise, what?"

"That we'll stick together."

"Oh, that. I promise, Guy. Always, and forever."

* * *

No matter what a dirty blighter you are, there's always someone who does your dirtiest work for you.

I know.

As dirty blighters go, you don't get much dirtier than the Right Dishonourable Sir Guy of Gisbourne.

What do you call a peer of the realm who plots to overthrow and kill his King, a Christian who dressed up like a Saracen to do it?

And that's not even the worst of his crimes.

There's a reason his peasants in Nottinghamshire think he's either the Devil, or of the Devil.

He's a cruel man, vengeful and vicious, I won't lie and say he is not. I have seen him torture and murder to justify his own ends, and without a second thought of it. My master doesn't give a damn about the great multitude of men and women, and whether they live or die, or whether he kills them or not.

This is largely because he endured a lifetime of cruelty and scorn, that began with his own father and extended to almost every man, woman and child who knew him, since he was a boy.

They treated him like he was the Devil's Own, so that's what he grew to be.

He does have some good points, though, even if I am one of the few who can see them.

I just thought, though, that I would be honest with you, so you didn't think I was laboring under the impression that my Master is a good man, with some bad qualities.

On the contrary, he is a bad man, with some good qualities.

What do you call a bad man with some good qualities?

Well, I call him Master Guy, that's what I call him.

Among other things.

I am reminded, daily, of how I would have burnt at the stake if not for him, and how if he wanted to, he could send me right back to torture and fire.

Oh, I was in the Holy Land, alright, fighting for King, and Country and Church, or something like that.

Honesty, I was there because I'm a mercenary, and I'm paid to fight.

I was a damn good mercenary, and it wasn't such a bad life.

My father was a Dane, and his father was a Dane and his father came on the Viking ships, to conquer.

War is in my blood, like fire and iron are.

At least I had me freedom, then and I wasn't serving a dirty blighter like Sir Guy, to do his dirty work.

You might say it's just more mercenary work, and better paying, for you get a little room for yourself, a warm bed, three meals a day, and far less chance of losing your head.

A fine job for a peasant's son, serving a peer of the realm, and what does it matter to someone of your class who is King and who is Master, one toff is like another, and Sir Guy isn't so bad, for a dirty blighter.

Well, you have to tell yourself something.

Especially when you are, and have been, for most of your life, bound upon a wheel of fire with Sir Guy of Gisbourne, the Devil's Own.

* * *

It wasn't much of an engagement party, anyway.

No one likes Sir Guy and everyone likes Marian, so even the rich brown-nosers who showed up couldn't hide how melancholy they were to see a formal announcement of their engagement.

It was more like a funeral, and when Sir Guy put that ring on Marian's finger she looked like she wanted to chew her finger off.

My master died a little, to see it.

But, every minute she's in a room with him, she just looks at homelike she's starving ad he's made out of beefsteak,

He really does love her, and he thinks that will be his ultimate salvation.

Well, I think it will be his ultimate undoing, but he doesn't listen to me.

All in all, then, it was a bit of a relief when Robin crashed the party, robbed everyone and got into a fracas with my master.

That is nothing new.

Meanwhile, Sir Guy had lectured me, on how the food was for his guests, not for me.

Well, as he was currently a little short on guests, I decided it was time for me to eat.

Sir Guy took exception to that.

"Blackthorn? Will you just sit there, stuffing your face, and let this outlaw murder me?"

I slung my boots up onto the table.

"I'm just a peasant, milord Gisbourne. I can't get involved in the quarrel between two noblemen." I says.

I grew up with Guy and Robin; I know better than to get involved in their endless quarrel.

It was all very dramatic, except it wasn't, because whether they were men arguing about king and country and honor or they were boys arguing about war games in Sherwood, it was the same fight, and it always would be.

I value both men, so I will not choose a side in it.

* * *

After Sir Guy rode off after Robin Hood, in a huff, Marian turned her attention to Blackthorn, his ever-present bodyguard and valet.

The varlet sat there in Sir Guy's own chair, his boots on the table, his long braid of hair slung behind him, with a joint of mutton in one hand and a joint of venison in the other, filling his mouth with food and his goatee with grease and crumbs, as blithely as if it was his celebratory feast.

With his filthy boots up on the table, guzzling wine, all the while.

"Do you care so little for your childhood friend and your master, Blackthorn? You, a man with nothing but a death sentence hanging over your head, stripped of what land and trade you had? You are alive only because of Guy! Why do you not go after him?" she insisted.

"A man can forget his given name, when everyone calls him by his surname. But you all do it. As if I was a feckin' stranger to all of you, you call me Blackthorn! Well, I'm not, am I? I grew up with Sir Guy, as well as you, Marian. I don't recall you having ever been so bloody concerned about his welfare! And you are very good and getting yourself into this kind of trouble. It's your fault. You never should have said you'd marry Sir Guy, just because you get a funny feeling in your belly when you look at him. And all the while you are still in love with Robin. Well, you don't know the black-hearted Devil the way I do. He's not a man you can trifle with."

"Me? Guy would never do anything to hurt me?"

"Why? Because you're a woman? He's killed women. I've seen him kill a man in front of his own children. My master is a dangerous man. He's a magnificent bastard at best, but if you cross him? A ruthless bastard, the Devil's own. You can't have them both, Marian, and now you've set them at each other's throats over you. That is nothing new, though. Let them settle their own affairs, as noblemen are wont to do. I'm a peasant, the blacksmith's son, and I've no say in it. So, I'm eating." I replied.

"But they will kill each other!"

"No they won't. Robin no longer believes in killing. And Sir Guy knows if he killed Robin then you wouldn't marry him in a thousand years. They'll make big windy speeches about England and Richard and politics to each other, and Sir Guy will taunt Robin about how he's had you, whether he has or not, and then they will beat the stuffing out of one another, for awhile. You're in love with Robin and engaged to Sir Guy. You're all of blue blood and to the manor born. You ride off after them."

Marian was not about to let Blackthorn get away with that.

"Will you stop calling him Sir Guy! Everyone knows you two are lovers, and you have been for years!"

"Don't talk like that, Marian! That's a hanging offence!"

"As if they would hang you for it!"

* * *

Well, Marian wouldn't let me eat in peace, so after I finished the open bottle of wine and some of the food that was sure to spoil, I got on my horse and followed Guy's trail.

At the end of it, I found him blindfolded and tied to a tree with his arms over his head, quite unconscious, and badly beaten up.

Robin was conscious, but his face looked like it had been shoved through a miller's wheel, and his tunic was torn open, revealing that he had a bruise in the shape of one of Guy's boots, on his chest.

"I see you and Guy have been at one another, again. As usual. This time, you're going to need looking after, Robin. I'll send Marian, when I see her."

"How could she agree to marry him? And wear his ring?"

"You were away too long. And Sir Guy's a handsome Devil. Why have you got him blindfolded and tied to a tree? What were you going to do? Have a go at him in a different sort of way? Did you learn some queer habits from the Saracens?"

"Gisbourne is your lover, Blackthorn. I am not interested."

"Keep that kind of talk to yourself, Robin! They hang men for that! You and Marian are supposed to be my friends, would you stop publicly accusing me of a hanging offence?!"

I couldn't reach my master's wrists, so I stood on a rock to cut him loose.

"I cannot say what pains me more. That I must let Gisbourne go, or that you have become his lapdog."

I hadn't thought on how he'd fall into a heap on the ground when I did, though.

"Sir Guy? Shit, I hope I haven't done him any more mischief! I am a mercenary, Robin. I was a mercenary when we met in the Holy Land, and I am still a mercenary."

"You were the King's mercenary, then! Why did you come back to Gisbourne? How is it that he owns you, as if he had a mortgage on your very soul?"

"I serve him. Because he pays me. That's all. And Sir Guy always paid me the most. That is what it means to be a mercenary."

"No. There is more. I have heard him taunt you. And tell you that he owns you, that it is him or fire."

"He is fire, Robin. You're a merry man of merry Sherwood Forest. With fine ideals and a fine mission. Which is fine for you, because everybody likes you, and they always have. You wouldn't understand. Can you get me a bucket of water?"

I needed it, to wake my Master. You see, I am not a very big fella. I am a few inches over five feet, three or four and I weight ten stone and seven. Whereas my master is an inch or three over six foot and he's got to weight 13 stone.

I'm a strong man, for my father was a blacksmith, and, in happier times, so did I used to be.

So I made a good go at it.

Robin came back with the water, as I was trying to lift Sir Guy.

He threw the water over my master, who came slowly to consciousness, sputtering.

I put his arm about my shoulders.

"Blackthorn? How the Devil did you get here?" he snapped.

"You ought to know, Sir Guy. Come on then, milord Gisbourne. I can't carry you to your horse. You'll have to help me get you there."

"Why don't you just run away from him, Blackthorn?" Robin asked.

"Because not everyone is like you, Locksley." Guy retorted.

Robin lunged at him and I drew the war axe from across my back, and stood in front of Sir Guy.

"That's enough for today! Feckin' nobleman! You don't care how much mess you make so long as somebody's there to clean it up for you! One swing from either of you, and I'll cut your bollocks off."

I managed to get Sir Guy onto his horse and got myself onto mine.

"You should never have come back here." Robin told me.

"Well, you can have your movement, and your laws and your kings and your princes and alliances. But Nottingham is my home, and I have sworn to serve Sir Guy. It's only a matter of time before some son of King Henry's gives you back your lands and then Guy will just move back to his father's manor. Neither of you stand to lose a damn thing. You never have and you never will, because your blood is blue. Mine isn't. I have my master's trust, which I have had since we were children, and since my lands were stolen and my house and smithy burnt, that is all I have. You have what's yours, Robin, one way or the other. Don't try to talk me out of what's mine." I told him.

"It was your precious Richard who stole my Jamie's land, and burnt Erik Blackthorn's smithy and his cottage, and tore the headstone from his grave! Don't forget that!" Sir Guy reminded Robin.

"At least I made sure Blackthorn enjoyed the party." Robin wisecracked

"You certainly livened it up, some. Of course, you owe my master some thanks. After all, he's agreed to make a nice white wedding for a girl who's no virgin." I replied.

Robin was dumbfounded at that, and before he could make his retort, I pulled on the reins of Sir Guy's horse and nudged my own, and we began our journey out of Sherwood.

"Blackthorn, do you mean to say he's had her?" Sir Guy asked me.

"I mean to say I think she's had both of you, and acts to each of you as if she's only been touched by the one touching her."

"But I haven't!"

"Just because my beard is short, that doesn't mean I was born yesterday! You've had them all, and all their mother's, too! Women go mad over you, the good ones, and the bad. If you've not had Lady Marian, in at least two ways, I'll eat me feckin' boot, pickled in spiced wine!"

"You might have something, Blackthorn. It will bedevil Hood's mind, if he thinks that I have had his ladylove. Let him think that."

Notice that the wily son of a bitch didn't tell me whether I was right about him having Marian, or not?

"Don't gloat too much, milord. You'll fall straight off your horse, and I can't lift your dead weight."

"I've been lifting yours for years, Blackthorn."

Well, I couldn't help it, I had to laugh, even if the jab was at my expense.

He's also a witty bastard of a sardonic son of a bitch, Sir Guy is.

* * *

Jamie Blackthorn was the village blacksmith, as her father before her had been.

Eric didn't have a son, and his wife died in childbirth, so he passed what he knew, about war, and life, and blacksmithing, on to his daughter.

Eric was of Danish stock, and they didn't find their women to be weak or stupid, unless they proved that they were.

Jamie was neither.

She was also a good blacksmith, and she was the lifelong comrade of the future Lord Gisbourne.

So even if anyone had anything to say about her, they didn't say it too loudly.

Some people said that Gisbourne's son is drawn to the witch, because he, himself, is a young Devil.

They played and laughed, mocking God in his Church, when they were children.

Born bad, to be sure.

But Guy wanted more than to be Jamie's friend.

She had yielded to other men, he knew, and they treated her with the same contempt that women treated Guy.

But not to him.

She knew Guy wanted her, but if he did, he'd have to prove it.

She was thinking that, as she rode to the castle.

The Guard was used to letting her in.

Lord Gisbourne wasn't fond of her, but he was fond of her work.

Today, she had an audience with him, and his heir.

The mean old prick was in an awful mood, as usual.

And Guy was looking more of a handsome Devil, with every passing day.

And like the Devil, he had a way of making women, from the most virtuous to the least, lie down and open their legs for him. Guy had laid his cock, which she had heard was quite a thing to behold, to nearly every woman in Nottinghamshire, between 15 and 50.

They spoke of him in whispers, and they were even more convinced after lying with him that Guy was of the Devil; a mortal man of a mortal father couldn't be hung like that, and no man not of the Devil could be that kind of lover.

They hated and feared him more after they'd lain with him, but they could never shut up about it.

Indeed, you got the impression that every time they lay down with their husband or lover or sweetheart, all they could think about was Sir Guy of Gisbourne.

And they hated him the most for that.

But they deserved what they got, these stupid women who would pick a good man with a candy heart and a shallow soul over a bad man with a stout black heart and the soul of a noble wolf.

They deserved to be treated like playthings, or cattle, those who wouldn't give a Devil his due.

Jamie planned to.

It was half the reason she had done the business she was seeing Lord Gisbourne about, that day.

"I did not know we had business with you, to-day, Miss Blackthorn."

"With your permission, Milord, I have come to collect the bounty you offered on the wanted outlaw, Brian the Black. Thirty silver pennies, and a good horse."

Lord Gisbourne raised his eyebrow.

Guy looked alarmed.

Brian the Black worked for the future Lord Gisbourne; he was a highwayman, protected from capture by Guy, and it was Jamie's job to melt down gold and silver coins and jewelry into ingots, which Guy would then sell, at a great price.

It was a good business, and Jamie had a few of those ingots, buried in Ragnar's secret place, but Brian the Black was a greedy, stupid man, and it was only a matter of time before he blabbed to somebody.

She decided to cut hers and Guy's losses, and call their business a day.

"That reward is for apprehending the outlaw, dead or alive."

"Yes milord. You'll have to settle for dead."

Jamie took the pack off of her back, and lifted a large jar out of it.

Brian the Black's head, pickled in dandelion wine, an expression of shock will on his face, floated, therein.

"He came out of Sherwood to have his horse re-shod. And he came looking for trouble, because he heard the smith was just a woman."

Jamie laughed at the head.

"He got trouble, too, the son of a bitch."

"Edward, would you say that was the head of Brian the Black?"

Sir Edward, the Sheriff of Nottingham took a good look at the head in the jar.

"It could be no other man. Where's the rest of him, Jamie?"

"Oh, I sold the rest of him to the swineherd, to feed to his pigs. Got a ha'penny a pound, and the outlaw were a big bastard, so I made out."

Sir Edward was taken aback, but Lord Gisbourne cracked a smile.

"You're a piece of work, Jamie Blackthorn, and not the Lord's!" Guy snarled.

"They say the same about you, milord Guy."

Lord Gisbourne gave Jamie her sack with thirty silver ha'pennies, and a sturdy young stallion, saddle and all.

He was about to confer with the Sheriff, about how the girl had managed to kill the hulking Brian the Black, but Guy left the Great Hall, in great agitation.

"Where are you going, Guy?" his father demanaded.

"To meet my fate, father! I will not be mocked, or taunted by that woman, not one more time!"

To the Sherriff's surprise, Lord Gisbourne let him go.

"But Roger, after what she did to that beast of an outlaw! Do you not fear for your son?"

"Guy is the Devil's son, Edward. And she is the Devil's daughter. I will leave it to the Devil, to decide their fates."

* * *

Guy was surprised that Jamie was waiting for him, on the road through Sherwood.

"Did you need money and a horse that badly, Jamie? That you would slaughter Brian, and end my business with him, before it was finished.?"

"It was feckin' well finished, Guy. Brian was a dumb oaf, Guy. He very nearly botched his last job, and left your arse waving in the breeze. And he would have blabbed the moment he was nicked. Well, the son of a whore won't feckin' blab, now. I'll spilt the money with you, of course. But I need the horse." Jamie told him.

Mockingly.

"You don't tell me what to do, girl! And you don't make decisions like that! When the old man dies, I will be your Lord and Master!" Guy fumed.

"Will you now, Guy?" Jamie taunted.

"Don't taunt me, Jamie! I am not afraid of you!"

She dismounted, and drew her sword with one hand and the axe from her back with the other.

"You ought to be, you son of a bitch! Why don't you draw your sword and come on over here and feckin' prove it!"

Guy had sparred with Jamie, behind her father's barn, many times, almost every day, indeed, since they were children.

But he was mad enough now that he raised his sword against her, in genuine anger.

"I have had, at last, enough of your impertinence! And of your whoredom! Put down your weapons, and be a good girl for me, as you have been for the men you meet in your travels! I don't doubt that before you killed him, you seduced Brian on the filthy floor of your smithy, and cut off his head while he lay snoring beside you! After all, why let a man go to waste? I will have you, now, and whenever I like, after this! And you can either submit to me, or I will take you by force!"

"They all lie down with their legs in the air for you, don't they Guy? What would you know about rape? I'm a Dane; it's in my blood. But if it's my arse you're after, Guy, come and feckin' take it, if you dare!"

Guy threw himself against Jamie's axe and sword with a combination of lust and rage, but she was cool and calm.

She played with him, a little, and he realized she was toying with him, enticing him, in his fury, to make a mistake.

Guy realised that right around the time that he made a mistake, and Jamie cleaved his sword in two with her war axe, and laughed at him.

"Jamie!"

"You dumb son of a bitch! You've played right into me hands!"

She planted her boot in his belly, but she didn't kick him, just gave him a push.

Guy fell over on his back, his broken sword flying out of his hand and bumped his head on a large oak.

A few leaves fell on him, as Jamie pinned him to the ground holding his legs against the ground with her knees, the axe poised over his head.

"Do you mean to kill me, Jamie?" he asked, sounding genuinely hurt.

"Kill you? Damn it, Guy, my father was a Dane and his father a Dane and his father a raider and a trader and a warrior! If there is to be raping done, I'll be the one to do it!"

She imbedded her axe in the ground and undid three things.

The laces on her jerkin, the laces on her tunic, and all her long golden hair from her two braids.

She leaned over Guy.

It fell all over him, her lovely, long, curly, thick butter-yellow hair, as he leaned over him and kissed him.

And yanked the lace out of his breeches.

Guy tangled his fingers in her hair and held her body close to his.

He felt as he had never known to feel, with his hands on a woman, before.

Of all the whores he'd had, she was the one he wanted.

"Jamie. My Jamie." He moaned.

"Your Jamie and no one else's, Guy. Always, I've been your Jamie, and no one else's. No matter what they say I've done, or what I do, that's how it is, with you and me. I keep my promises."

"Then what was all this about?"

"I wasn't going to give it to you, Guy! Not like every other woman from here to Birmingham, and back again! If you wanted it, you'd have to feckin' well take it! Brian was an oaf, ready to blab on us, but I knew it'd make you red-hot mad, if I killed him. I wanted to see if you'd fight for it, and you did. Besides, I do need the horse. You fight like the Devil, Guy. If I didn't know what I was doing, you might have feckin' killed me. And I hear that you fuck like him, too? Do you?"

"Like the Devil himself. For you, Jamie? Like the Devil fucks the Whore of Babylon, in the deepest, hottest firepit in Hell."

"Will you, now, Guy? Prove it."

* * *

Guy rode his horse to death, on his way back from Nottingham.

His father was in council with Edward, the Sherriff of Nottingham, when he burst into the room.

"This time they mean to burn her, father! I have seen the order, in the bishop's purse, and King Richard's signature is on it! The Inquisitor and the bishop and their butchers do not mean to come for another ten days. You know the King, father. I have asked you for nothing, in all my life, because I know that of all the men in Nottinghamshire who hate me, you loathe me more. Now I will ask that you do this for me. Please, father. I do not ask you as a son, but as a man. Don't let them burn my Jamie. Talk to the King. Tell him she is a harmless blacksmith, who likes to drink, and spar with soldiers, and pick fights in the tavern. Tell him that she is the best blacksmith in Nottinghamshire!" Guy insisted.

"If Richard has signed our blacksmith's death warrant, I can do nothing for her, if it was seven days, or seven hundred." Lord Gisbourne explained to his son.

"Do you have the document, Guy?" Sir Edward asked.

"I could not very well steal it from him, while he slept!"

"You see, Edward? Much good can come from my son consorting with whores."

"Is there nothing that can be done, Lord Gisbourne?" Sir Edward asked.

"Go back to Nottingham, Guy, and buy the fastest horse you can find. Get some provisions together, and some money, in gold and silver coins. Get your Jamie onto that horse, and into the wind. If she can get to Dover, I can arrange passage for her, to Calais, in four days time. Let her lay low, on the Continent, for a year or two. They have need of good soldiers and good smiths, everywhere. I'm sure she could pass, convincingly, as a man."

Guy looked dumbfounded.

"You would help me, Father?"

"I don't hate you, Guy. I don't like you very much, but you're still my son. And I know there is only one soul on God's Earth that is kindred to your own. I would not see you bereft of your precious Jamie. Indeed, she is the finest smith in Nottinghamshire, and she has furnished me with a museum of the heads of nearly every brigand who has passed through my lands. It may not even take so long. When Richard next holds court, I will go and speak to him, and explain the situation."

* * *

Guy sat on the back of his horse, holding a lantern high, watching as the bishop spoke holy words from the Good Book, before the Inquisitors put the witch to the torch.

He waited until the five Inquisitors had soaked the wooden barn, and smithy and the thatched roof of the stone cottage with pitch and oil, and entered the house, to make sure the witch was there.

She wasn't.

Guy had made sure of that.

But still, they had taken her from him.

And they meant to murder her.

So they would pay.

When they were all inside, he lit a torch from the flame of the lantern, swung the lantern around, and threw it onto the thatched roof of the cottage.

The torch he threw at the barn.

Almost immediately, the barn and the cottage were an inferno.

The screams from inside began.

"What is this? What are you doing, young Gisbourne?" the bishop asked.

Guy grabbed him by the collar of his office, and held his sword to the hypocrite's throat.

He smirked, sardonically, perhaps demonically at the frightened bishop in the smoky firelight.

"I am a son of the Devil, and Jamie Blackthorn is my witch, my Whore of Babylon. I am here, you pious fool, to do the Devil's business."

He cut the bishop open, from neck to nuts, tossed his body to the ground, and dismounted from his horse.

Guy barred the door to the cottage, and to the barn, and he threw the bishop's corpse into the smithy and closed it's door, just before the fire from the barn set it aflame.

You could still hear the screaming.

"Let us out! Let us out, you Devil!" one of the Inquisitors screamed.

He pressed his face to the cross slit in the shutter on the windows that Guy had nailed shut, earlier that day.

"You who would burn an innocent woman, because she is good with sword and axe and wears trousers to work in in her father's forge?"

Young Gisbourne laughed in the terrified man's face.

"Do you know what it means to be hoist by your own petard? Burn, you dog! Burn until your flesh melts, until your eyes pop out of your skull, until your blood boils and your bones blacken! Burn as you would have had my Jamie burn, and suffer as you would have had her suffer! And when you are nothing but black bones, I will mingle you all together in a pit, piss on your grave, and fill in the pit as if I was burying the bones of slaughtered pigs!"

Guy calmly walked back to his horse, and mounted up.

He listened to the Inquisitors' screams, and when they were silent, he took all of their personal effects from their horses and tossed them into the inferno.

Guy stayed until the fire burnt itself out.

Then, he stripped to his waist, and dug a great pit where the barn had been.

Guy threw the blackened bones and other charred remains of five Holy Inquisitors and a Bishop into the pit, careful to leave only a few scattered bones. True to his word, he pissed on their upturned, screaming skulls, then filled in the pit with dirt and debris, and heaped a pile of debris over it.

"_In pace requiescat._" He snarled, with a sneering laugh.

* * *

Lord Gisbourne would swear that that his son had been ill for a week, confined to his bed by catarrh, fever, a cough, and aches and pains.

Indeed, several of Lord Gisbourne's servants had seen, themselves, that young Gisbourne was quite ill; especially on the morning that the Bishop and his Inquisitors turned up missing.

The Sheriff went to the site of the blacksmith's homestead and found littlebut ash and the remains of the stone cottage; the fire had burnt so hot and for so long, the villagers of Locksley said, that it lasted all night.

Sir Edward eventually found three human thighbones, a handful of teeth, and the jawbones of two men.

His verdict was that the Bishop and his Inquisitors had misjudged how ferociously the fire would burn, and that they were overcome either by smoke, or flame, and met their deaths along with Jamie Blackthorn.

That was the official explanation.

Unofficially?

Everyone in Locksley believed that Lord Gisbourne had lied for his son, and that Guy had shut the bishop and his men up in the inferno, and sat by, all night, to listen to them die.

They had killed his Jamie, and he had made them pay with their lives.

That story was to travel all over Nottinghamshire, and in some version, all of England.

Until everyone knew that Sir Guy of Gisbourne was the Devil.

Here to do the Devil's Business.


	2. The Devil's Women

**Chapter Two: The Devil's Women**

Marian was at the village market, in Locksley, when she heard the inevitable conversation.

Again.

This time, between the wives of two wealthy merchants, men who were always trying to curry favor with Lord Gisbourne.

"…takes the idea very seriously, that they are his peasants, doesn't he?"

"Oh, I know! He's something out of the Dark Ages, the _jus primae noctis_ all over again. Treats them just like livestock. He goes and takes his pick of the best one a man has, just like he was taking a pig or a cow, in lieu of the taxes."

"You know, you're right. My handmaiden, she used to be one of Gisbourne's girls. He gave her to my husband, when he was through with her, last year, at Christmas. Do you know what he said to my Baldwin? He told Baldwin that she was our Christmas gift!"

"Really? We got a herd of goats."

"Well, he's more generous with the yearly Yuletide gift than his father was! That was before your time, you were just a child. But that Sir Roger! What a bastard! You know, he used to keep young Gisboune locked in a garret? And he only got two sets of clothes for winter and summer, every year. Roger kept that boy like you'd keep a horse in a barn. Blackthorn, and that hedge witch in Sherwood? They were kinder to the lad than his own father."

"Well, Sir Roger raised him like that, because he's…you know. Touched by the Devil's hand. Sir Roger had to keep him disciplined."

"Disciplined black and blue? With legs like the stems of pipecleaners? Running around in rags, always at the blacksmith's cottage, or the witch's, for food and a warm place to sleep. And when Sir Roger would scold the boy for it, and forbid him to go to his only refuge? He'd have to go door to door, to every house in the Shire. Like a beggar. Please, Madam, I'm so hungry. I never have enough to eat. Please Madam, I'm so cold. Then, when he got to be a young lad, 16 or 17, he'd go to the kitchen door of rich widows. Mary told me, Gisbourne once told her, well, when I was a lad, I had to make my way in the world with my wits, and my sword arm, and my cock. It won't hurt any of your girls to learn that where charm doesn't work, you must either fight or fuck your way through life."

"Did he say that?"

"He did. If our Sir Guy is a wicked man, a ruthless man, a hard man, then he comes by it honestly, for his wicked, ruthless father made life hard for him. Well, so anyway, I asked Mary, you know, after a few months, well, what was it like? Being with a man like that. I mean, I'm old enough to be his mother, so I haven't been with him."

"Neither have I. But my sister has. She won't talk about it."

"Well, my Mary, she told me that he kept her like she was a cow. He gave her rooms, and clothes, and she at three meals a day, with his cook and his maids and the gamekeeper and Gisbourne. But they all sit at one end of the table and he sits at the other. And not because he thinks he's better than they are. They're villagers, all of Sir. Guy's servants. He doesn't like to keep anyone around, except that Mrs. Archer. He repaid the kindness she showed him, taking her into his home, saving her from that cottage and from the stake in her future. Anyway, Mary said she could do what she liked all day, in her rooms, as long as she didn't bother Gisbourne. And if she wanted anything, she'd ask one of the other servants, and, if it wasn't anything too extravagant, it would be provided to her. And he'd come to her bed, every night, and Mary said, she said he just can't be a natural man. You know what they say about the Devil?"

"Oh, I do!"

"Well, that's what Mary said. She said the Devil himself hasn't got an old fellow like that, and if you were to lie with the Devil, himself, you couldn't be more bewitched."

"Did he do anything…unnatural to her?"

"Well, that depends of what you mean by unnatural. Nothing that was a mortal sin, you know. Nothing that any husband doesn't expect you to do, and if you don't do it, he'll pay some whore to."

"I let mine pay a whore to."

"Really? Well, I'd be too jealous. But it's not the things he does, it's the way he does them, Mary said. Every night. Sometimes he'd come back, first thing in the morning, too. And she said he's a very passionate man, and wholly without shame."

"Is that what she said? Really?"

"Well, what she said was that there wasn't a single thing he wouldn't do, and he really knew how to give a woman a damn good fucking; you didn't have to be told he was half a Frenchman, that was for sure. But I don't say things like that."

Both women laughed.

"Anyway, though, Mary said that for days, he'd hardly say two words to her. Sometimes, if he was in a particularly good mood, he'd say hello and goodbye. And when he was finished he'd get up and leave. She was there for about six months, and then he just gave her to us, for a servant."

"How is that keeping her like a cow?"

"He gives the girls food and a place to live , and sees to it they are healthy and content, and he uses them for his purposes, and then when he's tired of them, he packs them off to some other household, in the shire, as a servant. And that's' the ones who don't make trouble for him. If he gets a girl who nags at him, or pesters him, or tries to act as though her place is better than it is? Off they go to a whorehouse. How did you sister end up with him?"

"Oh, she was besotted! She went and lived with him for town months, like one of his peasant girls. She thought for sure she could make him love her. I told her, Sir Guy's blood may be hot, but his heart is cold. It froze when those terrible men came from London and burnt poor little Jamie Blackthorn for a witch! I'd say his heart was dead if it wasn't for Marian. Maybe he doesn't love her the way he did the blacksmith, but he feels something for her."

"The rest of them are just livestock to him. But even the ones who grow to hate him, they pine after him. Mary says she'll never marry. She says there can be no other man for her. Not after Sir Guy."

"Well, who can follow the Devil? Who has he taken up with, now?"

"Annie Thatcher."

"The drunkard's daughter? The one who lay with all of her brothers? Not that she had a choice. Poor girl. She thinks that's love, having a man take a poke at you. Where was she to learn otherwise. You know John, drunk or no, he sent Gideon away to the Crusades, because the lout was threatening to take his sister to London, and marry her, as no one there would know they were related! The girl's forever chasing after some man she's had, convinced she's in love with them. Some women just can't help themselves. They're like cats in heat. Not too bright, but very determined."

"Well, a girl like that ought to be a perfect witch for our young Devil. At least they'll have a common interest."

"Ssssh! Marian's coming! And she has to marry him, poor girl."

"The poor girl."

If Marian and a ha'penny for every time she'd heard a whispered conversation like that about Guy, or one about how he was a changeling, or that his mother was a witch who consorted with the Devil, she could have bought a castle. And if she had a ha'penny for every conversation she'd heard between men, about what a black-hearted, ruthless bastard Guy was, she could have bought the whole of Nottinghamshire.

She was getting sick and tired of it.

They didn't know Guy.

Since Robin had gone off to war, she had come to know him better.

He was, unmistakably, and it seemed, irreparably, a bad man.

But, unlike what most people thought, Guy was not the Devil.

"I am not a poor girl! My father was Sherriff of Nottingham, and my mother is kin to King Richard! And I will not listen to you busybodies, who think that because I am engaged to marry Sir Guy, that I am the most pitiful creature in Nottinghamshire! You merchants think that because you have money that you are equals to nobles? You are not! So you should keep your mouths shut, about your betters!"

At first, Marian had begun going to what had been Robin's home, because it reminded her of him.

And because she knew that she was obligated to marry Guy, so she felt she must come to know him, better. He had abandoned Gisbourne Manor for Locksley Manor, as quickly as he possibly could, but it wasn't just to spite his childhood rival.

The place where Guy grew up held nothing for him but misery.

Roger of Gisbourne had hated his wife, and with her death in childbirth, he transferred that hatred to her son, who looked just like her.

Marian had heard it whispered that Guy was born with a caul and a tail, and that his father removed both.

And burnt Guy's mother, alive, in the dungeon of Nottingham Castle.

Roger of Gisbourne had hated his wife, and with her death in childbirth, he transferred that hatred to her son, who looked just like her.

Guy's mother, Ghislane, was Lord Gisbourne's second wife.

Her temperament was similar to her son's.

She was beautiful, intemperate, and wicked; the accusations that Guy was a son of the Devil came out of the accusation that his well-born, monied mother had been a witch.

Lord Gisbourne raised his son an heir in much the way that Guy looked after the peasant girls he took from their fathers, who couldn't pay Prince John's unfairly high taxes.

As if he was a valuable and spirited horse, instead of a boy.

Inside the man's wicked shell, there was a good man, trying to come out, but the only person who had ever seen the good in Guy, save Marian, the one who might have saved him?

Jamie had been gone for nearly ten years, and she was still under sentence of death, for witchcraft, if she ever showed her face in Nottinghamshire.

Marian had long decided that she would speak to the King, about Jamie, when he returned to England. But she still did not understand why Uncle Richard should want her to marry Guy, instead of Robin.

Robin fought at his side, while Guy, stayed in Nottinghamshire and brooded.

But that was what Guy was expected to do and Robin was no longer a nobleman; no longer a man she could even think on marrying.

Any more than Guy could have married Jamie.

They had that in common.

Never would either of them be able to marry the one they truly loved.

But Guy did love her.

Sir Malcolm had written to King Richard, to ask for her hand, for his son, Robin.

Guy had defied his father's wishes, and gone to Richard's court, in Brittany, to ask his King, in person, for Marian's hand.

They had been bethrothed since Marian was 17 and Guy was 24 or 25.

In Nottingham Cathedral, with Guy in linen and black leather, and Maian in a white dress, nervous as a cat.

She was supposed to do or say something, which she forgot, and she nearly fainted from nervousness.

But Guy took both of her hands in his.

"Don't be frightened, my little Marian. And don't look at that pious fool of a bishop. Or at all these jackasses, gawking at us. Just look at me, and say what I say, right after I say it. You'll be alright. I won't let go of your hands, until it's all over."

If things had gone the way Guy wanted, and their marriage had followed their bethrothal a month later, well then!

Well, then, things would be so very different.

But, in ten years, Marian had become a woman grown.

She had quit swooning over him, and learned to despise him, and then to forgive and accept him, only to now find herself loathing and loving him, if you could call it love, in distressingly equal amounts.

For years, Marian, tried to see what Jamie must have seen in Guy.

When she finally did, it broke her heart.

But, even so, there were times that Marian did feel like a poor girl, obligated to marry Guy.

Especially at night, when she was alone, and all she could think of was how much she wished she was already married.

To Robin, she wasn't ashamed to think it.

She loved Robin.

Then why, why, why was it in the night, when she was alone, she could think, she could dream, even, only of Guy?

* * *

**Acre, King Richard's Encampment**

King Richard was sorry to see Blackthorn go.

The lad had been his mercenary for five years, and Richard trusted him, more than any of his other Captains, even Robin of Locksley.

Because Blackthorn was a mercenary.

It was not love of God, or King, or England that kept Blackthorn loyal to him, it was money.

And Richard had more than enough money to pay Blackthorn's price.

But his latest campaign was at an end, and Blackthorn's leg had been badly wounded.

The mercenary suuvived, and didn't lose the leg, but Blackthorn was left weakened.

What Blackthorn needed was to return home, and have the bone broken and reset, home where he could have time to rest, and allow his body to heal.

"It won't be much of a homecoming, young Blackthorn. Your father's lands forfeit, everything he owned burnt to ash. And my name on the warrant. Before you depart, Blackthorn, I will make amends to you, and your family. Take this document to the Sheriff of Nottingham. It restores your father's land to you. And directs him to give you a tidy sum, in repayment for your trouble. You shall have your father's land back, to rebuild."

"I don't blame you for it. Little you knew, Richard; it was just another meaningless bit of paper for you to sign and seal. You had bigger fish to fry. You probably signed the warrant without even looking at it. Besides, I spent my whole life, looking out over the horizon, thinking about my Danish forefathers. War. Conquest. Pillage. Rape. Well, I've had it all, and ten years of it, and now I am ready to go home."

"Home! You care as little for England as I do, Blackthorn! You return for the sake of Sir Guy, of Gisbourne."

"What if I do, Richard? I am bound to him, and I would serve him."

The King of England laughed.

"You would serve him? You, Blackthorn, who serve only your own appetite for war and plunder, and your desire for money and the pleasures of the flesh? Be careful, for they will hang you, for that kind of love of a man."

That made Blackthorn laugh.

"He has no love for you, Richard. He knows you as a bad king, not as a good soldier. And Sir Guy's ambition doesn't end with money and women. You would not cut off your brother's head, no matter how he plotted against you. Because you have no heir. Yet. But any man who plotted with him? I know you, Richard? You will cut off their heads, yourself. I would not see Sir Guy's ambition clash with your war axe."

"I would not, either. I see promise in the man. That is why I would have my ward marry him, and not Locksley. Locksley is a fine man, but he is too good for his own good. After I am dead, and my brother is King, he will end up a dead man or an outlaw. But Gisbourne? He's a bastard, and cream and bastards rise. He was barely grown when he came to my court, in clothes so new you could smell the debt, all full of some outrageous scheme he had cooked up to make it seem like he was a far better man than Locksley, to marry my ward. Gisbourne, the son of a mongrel Irish witch born on the wrong side of the blanket and an unmitigated villain! Who had those fine clothes from some merry widow he was making all the more merry! But I could see, now this is a lad with promise! So you had better go, Blackthorn, and keep your Sir Guy's ambitions in check. For your sake, and Marian's. But, there is one thorn in your garden bower."

"Which is?"

"Jamie Blackthorn, daughter of Erik Blackthorn was burnt as a witch. I can't pardon you for that crime, or sort out that you are not dead, without making arrangements with many eminent bishops, and cardinals and such. That I must do in person. But I can restore Erik's lands to his son. James, also called Jamie Blackthorn. You will have to wear those two pairs of hose inside your breeches, for a little while longer."

"I had no brother, and everyone in Nottinghamshire knows that. But my father has a brother, Ulric, in Leicestershire. And I have a cousin, in Leicestershire, called James Blackthorn. If I was to visit with my kin, before I returned home, I am sure they would keep with the ruse that I was cousin Jamie, come to claim his Uncle's lands."

"Then that is how I will make out this document. It doesn't bother you, then, to impersonate your cousin James?"

"It is always easier to be a man, than a woman. And as long as the disguise comes off for him, I know Guy will not be troubled."

"As I have never been."

"Richard, there are several reasons that my disguise has never bothered you."

The King laughed.

"Away with you, Blackthorn! But I will be glad, when we meet again."

* * *

**Locksley Manor**

Marian was not so eager, to accept the invitations to Locksley Manor, to dine with Sir Guy to dine with Sir Guy, as she once was.

Not after Robin's return.

Not after their childhood rivalry blew up into a man's vendetta.

Not in her confusion about her feelings for the man she was obliged to marry.

But she went, because she felt she had to.

And still, she was compelled.

No sooner did she pass his doorstep than did Guy's cook usher her into the kitchen, where she and her husband, the gamekeeper, were hiding, with the maids.

"What's going on?"

"There's trouble with Annie, milady. You should not be here to see this."

"No. I should. I want to see how Guy will treat me, when I cross him."

Annie had made the mistake, as one of the old busybodies in the market had put it, of thinking her position was better than it was.

It was a horrible spectacle.

Guy was in a black fit of rage, and just as Marian arrived, Annie was literally throwing herself on his mercy.

She was at his feet, on the ground.

"Please, Lord Gisbourne, if you must send me away, send me home to my father! Or to the service of some house! But not to be a common whore!"

Guy shook her off his leg as if she was a stray dog begging for food.

"You are far worse than a common whore! I have taken you from the filthy hovel your yokel father raised you in! You no longer have to sleep in a louse-ridden bed with all your brothers, who took turns fucking you, and that drunken louse of a father of yours, as well! I put the clothes on your back, and the food on your plate, and you live, at my pleasure, under my roof, but yet you think you can taunt me? Do you think you are finer than any of the girls who have been here, before you? Well?"

"Mercy, Guy! Have mercy!"

"Mercy? I've had more mercy on you than was ever shown to me! My father threatened to have Mrs. Archer burnt at the stake if I kept going around her, and he said he'd hang Erik and send Jamie to the whorehouse if I kept company there! It was unseemly, he said! Unseemly! When we were children, my sister and I begged from door to door like urchins! He practically sold her to a man old enough to be her father when we were 13! And I wasn't much older when I started with the rich, lonely widows. Folk think my father started treating me with respect, that's why when I was a young man I started to have money and fine clothes! That's not how I made my start in the world! If I sent you home to your father, he would have to pay his tax, and he couldn't pay his tax in a thousand years! I would not send you to any brothel in my lands, for I think too highly of the whores who work in them! God only knows I was once a pretty young gigolo in high demand in Nottinghamshire! Do you think I was born knowing how to fuck so well? It was my bread and fucking butter, girl! No, I'll get my money's worth out of you, selling you to the soldiers. You may fight God's Holy Crusade on your back! You'd like it, whore that you are! I never minded, did I?" he screamed.

Marian was horrified.

Annie tightened her grip on Guy's leg, and his boot.

"Guy, I only said that once you loved a blacksmith, perhaps you might have some feeling for me! Please, milord, don't cast me off! I came from nothing. And I have nothing to return to! I love you, I would die without you!" Annie sobbed.

Marian came out of hiding.

"Guy, she's little more than a child! You have told Annie, in my presence, that you chose her to be your servant, because she had blond hair and blue eyes, like Jamie. And I know you had pity on her, because she was ill-treated, all her life. As you were ill-treated, for much of yours. For years I have come to dine with you, and listened to you complain about your servant girl being lazy, or slatternly, or uppity. You have never had a single bad word to say about Annie. Could you find a servant more devoted to you, in all of Nottingahmshire?"

"Marian, you would be my wife. What makes you want to plead for my whore?"

"I am not your wife, yet, Guy."

"That is no answer."

Guy looked down into Annie's tear-stained, imploring face.

"Do you know, Annie, you are such a pathetic cow of a fucking whore, that I do not even have the heart to throw you out! Besides, you would end up marrying your own brute of a brother, strangled on an ash heap before you could bear him an idiot heir. Stop groveling! What sort of man do you take me for, that I might enjoy it! Stand up!"

Annie stood up.

"And stop sniveling! You have lived here for six months, don't you know me for a bad-tempered man, yet? I don't mean every word I might shout at you, and by the Holy Rood I don't know why it is you enjoy making me angry! I'm not going to slap you around, and then throw you on the ground and pull your dress up over your head; I don't care what you want, girl, there are some depths to which it's not my pleasure to sink! And that's what you're here at. My pleasure! Go and wash your face, then get yourself to the kitchen!"

"Do you forgive me, Guy?"

"God's blood, woman, am I Christ himself, that you think you have to beg my forgiveness? Go!"

Annie beamed a great smile, through her tears, and did as she was told.

"I think she enjoys provoking me! What she wants is for me to start slapping her around. You would not believe the crimes that have been done on that girl, what she's accustomed to, from a man! When her brute brother returns from the Crusades, I'll torture him to death, myself."

Guy sat down, at the head of Robin's table.

Mrs. Archer came, and took Marian's cloak.

"You were unreasonably cruel to the poor girl, Guy."

"She likes it when I'm unreasonably cruel to her! She does nothing but provoke me!" Guy protested.

"You are a grown man. She is a girl of 18. You should not let yourself be provoked." Mrs. Archer told him, before taking Marian's cloak, away.

Marian sat in the chair just to his left.

Her usual spot.

"What did the girl do to deserve that, Guy?"

"I do not need to be reminded that I once loved a blacksmith, daughter of a blacksmith."

There was one empty jug of wine in front of Guy, and he opened another.

His moods were more tempestuous, when he was drunk, and he surely was.

"Guy, I know it is not my business, until I am your wife, but you can't treat a woman like she was a cow or a horse. You didn't like it when your father did the same to you? When we were younger, you'd often complain that he had raised you like you were a spirited and valuable horse, not like you were his son. If all of the…working girls in Nottinghamshire are so fond of their Lord, then you would be better off to visit them."

Guy smirked, joylessly.

He drank wine right from the jug.

"Why, Marian?"

"Is it not always better to…to lie with some0ne who has fond feelings for you? Otherwise, how are you any different from a dog, or a horse, yourself?"

"A mindless animal, rutting whatever female he finds before him, in the fury of his heat?" Guy chuckled.

Marian blushed, deeply.

She loved Robin, still, but Guy stirred her in a way that Robin never had.

She could see why some thought that the power Guy had over women came from black magic, or from the Devil, himself.

When he spoke she envisioned herself, shamelessly naked, entwined in some gloriously sinful embrace with Guy, in the great, terrible, and wonderful fury of his lust.

"We are not married yet, Guy! You shouldn't talk like that, to me!"

Guy's housekeeper brought several plates back and forth from the kitchen.

"I can't help but agree with Lady Marian. All these silly young girls, they get so attached to you. And you enjoy being their Dark Prince, their Black Knight in leather trousers. You break their hearts and they all make a fool of you. Now, with this Annie, you have really made yourself a bed you can't lie in. Jamie is Jamie, Guy. You can't recreate her by chance." She said.

"You don't spend every night, asleep in your rooms! I have your blood, I can't lie quietly at night, either!" Guy snapped.

Guy's housekeeper muttered something under her breath, in French, and left them to dine, alone.

The cook and the gamekeeper left to return to the village.

Mrs. Archer would return to clear the dishes, and clean up much later, long after Marian and departed, and Sir Guy had retired.

Manners in Nottinghamshire were not what they had been at the King's court, in London, but Guy had no manners at all.

He ate like a peasant, or an animal, using only his fingers and a knife for utensils.

Sir Roger had not permitted his son to eat at the table at Gisbourne Manor; he took his meals in his bedchamber.

Marian was gently bred enough to ignore Guy's lack of manners; but watching him attack and devour meals large enough for two men as if they were going to get up and walk away was both fascinating and revolting.

Truly, Guy ate like a horse.

She laughed a little.

"When I dine with you, Guy, I can almost see Jamie at your other elbow. Reaching under your arm with her knife to spear a better piece of meat. Shouting "Roll" at you as if you were on the other side of the world. If there is life in her, Guy, she will return to you."

It made Guy smile, just to think of Jamie.

A real smile.

"I have had a letter from her. She is still in the service of the same Sir Piers of Kent, as she has been, for five years."

"Can you read it to me?"

"Not all of it."

"Guy, really!"

He wiped his fingers and his mouth on the tablecloth, and took a rolled parchment from his belt.

Guy had taught Jamie Blackthorn to both read, and write, from a fanciful book that had been his mother's.

"Dear Guy. I am sorry I have not written you for a while, but I have been very busy as I had pillaged myself a fine lad to be my prisoner of war. He is French, so I have taught him to fuck like a Frenchman. I kept him as long as My Lord found it amusing, but when Piers began to get jealous, I had to send my lad along. I have smuggled him out of the Holy Land; he was not the sort to survive war, so well."

Guy laughed, and shook his head.

"That is the part I can read you. I'll pick up a few sentences down, no, no, this next bit is all about me, and how much she misses me. And why."

Marian blushed, again, and then, as guy read on, the smile left his face.

"I had not got to this part! I have got a lot of time to write you, now, as I have had a great fucking arrow through me leg, which broke the bone in pieces. The doctor would have sawed me leg off, so I have fixed it up, the best I could, from what I read in your mother's books. It is healing up, good, and I am glad I shall still have a leg to stand on."

They both sighed with relief.

"…anyway, I hope Good King Richard gets his fine ginger arse back to England, soon, so that you and Marian can get married, and explain to him as to how I am not a witch. I have had a belly full of war, and conquest, and I can get pillage and rape, both, at home. I think more now, on having my land back, and rebuilding than ere I did before. I hope that Marian will not be jealous with you, when she is your wife…And the rest is personal."

"I would not, Guy. I expect you to quit importing peasant girls, and making charitable contributions at the brothels, once we are wed. But I would never be jealous of your Jamie. I would not make you choose."

"Don't be provincial, Marian. We're not peasants, are we? I don't expect you to choose, either. Besides, as between me and my rival, I know which one of us is the better man. After we are married, you'll know, too."

Guy replaced the parchment at his belt.

"I suppose you ought to tell Hood that Jamie is alive and well." He said, curtly.

"I will, if I see him."

"I know you see him, Marian. And I know why you have "Lady" before your name and not "Maid" I envy you, that you might lie in the arms of one who loves you. The closest I have to that is the embrace of a whore, who recognizes the embraces of another whore, in comradeship. Of all the girls I have brought here, mad little witch that she is, I like Annie the best. We are well suited to one another."

He took another drink.

Marian was suddenly angry, ad jealous, all at once.

"I have been not been so intimate with Robin, as you think! You will be my husband, so I will not lie to you about such things. But I am yet a maid. I have not let him touch me below the waist, in any of the…secret places of my body. And you should not say such things of yourself, Guy."

"At least the honest whores don't shrink from me at the same time as they press me close to their hungry bodies! These peasant girls hate me, and they fear me, but they can't have enough of me. They pull my hair out in handfuls, and scratch my back to ribbons, and slap and yank and grab at me like I was a wild horse they were riding. I might as well be a beast as a man; to them I am six feet and two inches of cock; they see no man attached to it."

Guy spit the words, bitterly.

"But they do not loathe me as much as I loathe myself. I am a bad man, Marian, and Hell will hold no surprises for me. You give Robin your love, when he has the love of every man, woman and child in the Shire! He is their hero, and I am their Baphomet, their goat! Robin wants you love, but I will be your husband, and I need it."

He grabbed her hand, and seized her eyes in his gaze.

"Guy, don't!"

"I have so much more to give you, Marian. I can make you forget that your Robin ever laid a hand on you. Would you make me wait until Richard kills every Saracen in the Holy Lands to hold in my arms a woman who has feeling for me, other than fear, hate, and contempt? I know you do not love me. But you have always, at least, pitied me. At most, I believe you understand me. And I know that I stir you. Come to me, Marian. You will not regret it."

He pulled Marian into his lap.

"I am yet a maid, Guy! And I will be, on our wedding night."

"Did I say that I would take your maidenhead? Do you really know so little of the art of love? And of the secret places of your body? I know those secrets well. Very well."

Marian suddenly realized what sort of things he was talking about, and she blushed cherry red to the roots of her hair.

"Guy, don't say such things! I shall die!"

And he would never just kiss her; he'd make her throw her arms around his neck and practically beg him.

She always did

He made her do it, just to show her how deeply she desired him.

But Marian had not sat in his lap, before, and it was such a long, lingering, passionate kiss!

It was only the knock of her father's retainer upon the door that saved her.

Marian jumped to her feet and Guy slammed his fists, angrily, on the table.

"God's blood, can that son of a whore man-at-arms of your father's smell when you are in heat, for miles around? Damned, I am fucking damned!"

Guy looked up, and shook his fist.

"You, you did this to me, you cruel bastard! Took my Jamie, and put iron in Richard's lion heart, so that my maiden bride is very nearly an old maid! And I have suffered for ten long years of relentless prick-teasing!"

Marian shuddered, in fear.

"What's the matter with you, woman! He's not coming down from heaven above to smite me! And you? I'll find out if you're lying to me, about your purity and your chastity? And if you've been putting out for Locksley, and leaving me blue-balled? I'll show you which one of us is the better man! And we both know you won't be sorry for it!"

Marian loved Robin.

And she was a virtuous woman.

But she was only human, after all.

She turned her head, to shout to her father's man-at arms.

"John, I'm not well! I'm having some womanly troubles. Mrs. Archer is going to help me to a warm bath, and then to bed. I don't think I could bear the ride home, joggling my insides about."

Guy smirked at her, conspiratorially

"I'm sorry, milady. But I have my orders." John steadfastly replied.

"The game's up, Marian. You had better go." Guy told her.

"I know you're not the Devil, Guy. But you do tempt me!"

"But I am the Devil, Marian. And whether now or later, you will give me my due." He promised.

With a sly wink.

That night?

Marian did not sleep a wink.

* * *

Guy drank the rest of the second jug of wine, and began to regret having been so mean to Annie.

Almost.

If that son of a whore had not come to the door…

Guy got Jamie's letter back out, and read it, a second time.

_Dear Guy. _

_I am sorry I have not written you for a while, but I have been very busy as I had pillaged myself a fine lad to be my prisoner of war. He is French, so I have taught him to Fuck like a Frenchman. _

_He's not very good at it, but I suppose after you've Had been Fuck'd, in the French Way, from a Son of the Devil, no man can be better._

_Anyway, I kept him as long as My Lord found it amusing, but when Piers began to get jealous, I had to send my lad along. I have smuggled him out of the Holy Land; he was not the sort to survive war, so well._

_I hear things about you, my Devil, about what you are up to in Nottinghamshire, and that your reach extends even so far as this camp._

_Well, I don't give a Fiddler's Fuck about you taking a stab at killing the King; you and everyone else. You ought to be glad you didn't get close, if it was you; I'd have no one to write too._

_But you mean to say you were in this parts, and you didn't visit me?_

_All I have are my fond memories, and the Wonderful Device of wood and leather I've had made up to your exact proportions, length and girth. _

_But a bit of wood and leather is a piss poor substitute for your company, in my bed, and out of it._

_Well, I have got a lot of time to write you, now, as I have had a great fucking arrow through me leg, which broke the bone in pieces. _

_I would have no leg, but we have a Saracen doctor who is a Christian and not a Moslem, and Their doctors are better than ours._

_He fixed it up as best he could in these Primitive Conditions, but he says I must have it treated in Hospital, re-broken and re-set, by a competent medical man or woman, and then I must have a Long Rest._

_Sir Piers will arrange for that; by the time you get my Letter, I shall be on my way to my Competent Doctor and Long Rest._

_Anyway, I hope Good King Richard gets his fine ginger arse back to England, soon, so that you and Marian can get married._

_I know her and Robin are of Two Minds about it, but I think that Robin will make a Fine Understanding Lover and you a Quite Excellent specimen of Darkly Brooding Wayward Husband._

_Me, Dane that I am, I have had a belly full of war, and conquest, and I can get Pillage and Rape, both, at Home. I think, when I come Home, I shall, Pillage from your Enemies with Robin, for my Amusement and your Enrichment. _

_As for Rape, I think a Bit of Rape, on my Part, and of his Sanctimonous Person would do Robin some good. I have not yet had any man complain to me about my Raping of their Persons; in fact, they always wish to be my Victim a Second Time._

_I think more now, on having my land back, and rebuilding than ere I did before. _

_I hope that Marian will not be jealous with you, when she is your wife; maybe she will be Distracted when Robin tells her how Wickedly I forc'd myself upon him._

_After all, Guy, you not being a Queer, there's only so much you can do to your Worst Enemy._

_It is getting rather Late, and my Lady Jane, downstairs, nags me at the thought of you._

_She will only have the False Cock, I am afraid, but I will think on you, Guy, as much as I can without becoming Melancholy._

_So to you, my Dear Friend Guy and to my Greatest Friend, that tall, stout Formidable Frenchman Jean-Thomas, I bid a Fond Goodnight, with a Hopeful Heart full of Love for the both of you._

_And Double from Lady Jane._

_Jamie_

Jamie's stoicism about pain and injury was admirable; but he had known many times when it was dangerous to her health.

Where was his Jamie?

Was she in pain, was she in harm's way?

Did she need him?

He needed her, God only knew , he did.

But Guy could do little, but put her letter inside his tunic, close to his heart, and open another jug of wine.

Annie came out of her room, and stood behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders.

"Do you not think, Guy, that you ought to retire?"

"Do I look so tired?"

"You look as though, once again, Milady had exhausted you, in mind and body, with her cruel teasing and tormenting. In truth, I think Lady Marian has little feeling for you. As a man, I mean. You are, to her, only an object of her frustrated lust."

"Ten years of this, Annie. And you are the first girl I have ever had here who doesn't hate me as much as she wants me. I miss my Jamie. She loved me. And she never left me wanting. And as for my future wife, her frustrated lust will have to do. I know Marian will never love me the way she loves her beloved Robin. Even if Locksley was dead. And my Jamie is God only knows where, this night. She may be hungry. She may be cold, or in pain. And I can do nothing. You ought to leave me, Annie. I'm no good for you. And you love to bring out the worst in me. Go to Kirklees Abbey, and find peace, in the gentle arms of contemplative monks. Better men than me."

"I would not leave you alone, in the hands of such a fickle woman. Neither you nor Robin Hood are better for her place in your lives."

"Go back to your room, Annie. I am drunk, and bitter, and angry. I would only be cruel to you. And I don't wish to be cruel to you."

Annie knelt on the floor, at his feet.

"I won't leave you, Guy. This black mood that has taken you is partly my doing."

"Get up off the floor, Annie."

Guy pulled Annie up from her knees, and sat her in his lap.

She blushed.

"Is that for me? Or for her?" she asked.

Annie was very shy, and passive to the point of masochism, but she was a very passionate woman.

The combination of the two made her black magic, for any man, and worse for a man like Guy.

Annie adored him, he was her savior; and she looked on him as if he was some pagan god of lust and fornication; if ever a woman was a witch to Guy's Devil, it was Annie Thatcher.

"Isn't it always, Annie?"

"Did it really vex you, Guy, being a gigolo?"

"No. I enjoyed it. As much as you've enjoyed having every apprentice in town, and half their masters."

"We are a couple of true whores, for there is nothing we love better than our whoredom."

"Yes, but I never fucked my sister." Guy reminded Annie.

"Why do you think your father married her to a man far from here, when you and she were 13?" Annie retorted.

"Isabella was always wickeder than I. When we were small, we slept in the same bed, in that garret, because we were lonely. And often cold. I started sleeping in my own bed, once I got to be 12. And Isabella? She'd complain she was cold in Midsummer."

"I never had my own bed."

"You wouldn't have gone to it; you are as wicked as Isabella! When May Day comes, I ought to get one of those horned headdresses mummers wear, and take you outside, naked, under the moon. Find some standing stones to lay you down in the middle of, and fuck you until you howl at the moon. Until I should howl at the moon, too." Who knows, on such a day, I might even let my magic slip, so you can see my tail. And my horns."

"Will you come to my bed, then, my Horned King?"

"Why not? After all, it is the Devil's work, to give his witches their due."

* * *

Guy was too drunk to walk straight when he went to Annie's bed, and a few turns with her didn't improve his balance.

He stumbled out of bed, intent on dumping a basin of cold water over his head, but the floor rose up to meet him, halfway.

Guy came around, around, a little later, in his bed.

His hair was damp, and his housekeeper was pulling the covers over him.

"What happened?"

"Too much wine and witches."

"Jamie's letter!"

"Be still, Guy. I found it, and put it with the rest of them. It is safe."

She put her hand under his head, and lifted a mug of gingery tea to his lips, then Mrs. Archer arranged his pillows, so he could sit up.

"Drink it slowly. So that you won't get sick, again, during the night. I'm going to stay by your bed, tonight, though, just in case."

"So, I passed out, and then I was sick? What charming company I am, when I put my mind to it! No wonder I disgust Marian. She knows what kind of man I am, no matter what airs I put on. Do I disgust you, too, Mother?"

"It's not as if it's every night that you make a pig of yourself, and drink too much, and try to convince Annie that you are, indeed, Pan, himself."

"That's not what I mean, _ma mere._ I mean, as a man, as your son, do I disgust you? Do you wish Robin was your son?"

On the premise that Ghislane was, indeed, a witch, Roger of Gisboune took his wife from her childbed, to the dungeons of Nottingham castle, where for nearly three days he indulged his sadistic desires to torture her.

When Ghislane expired, her husband thought her dead.

He left her body in Sherwood Forest, and spread the word that she had died of a contagious fever following Guy's birth, and he'd been obliged to have her body burnt, to avoid the spread of the disease.

But Ghislane did not die.

She concealed herself in Sherwood, for fear of what Roger would do to her, if he found her alive.

All through the lives of her twins, Ghislaine suffered to see the way they were treated, but all she could do for them was provide a refuge for her children, and Jamie Blackthorn, at her cottage in the wood.

Upon until the death of her wicked husband, Ghislaine finally revealed herself to her son.

She had feared that he, too would spurn her, or that he would be angry with her, for her deception.

But, though he was a man of twenty and seven, when she revealed herself, unwrapping her scarf and lowering her hood, Guy wept like a child.

Immediately, he took her back to Locksley Manor, even though, she too, if she was found to be alive, had a death sentence hanging over her head.

That did not bother Guy.

He said he would kill as many bishops and inquitors as he had to, even King Richard, himself, to keep her and his Jamie safe, and to bring his Jamie home.

Unlike his father, Guy was a man of honor.

"Why would you disgust me, Guy? Malcom's son was a spoiled brat, when he was a boy. And now? Even as a man, he looks and acts like an overgrown boy. He goes to play war games, and when he returns to find things have changed, he names himself another Sir Lancelot, and scorns you, when you have had to negotiate the nest of vipers King Richard left, in his wake. He loves Lady Marian, he says, but what does he do but constantly put her in harm's way? And tempt her to defy her Godfather, who is also her kinsman and her King? You may be a bad man, _ma chere fils_, but you have good qualities. Annie is right about you. You save what kindness to have for the misfits and outcasts of the world. For your Jamie, who they would have burnt as a witch. For me, an old woman, with a disfigured face and a scarred body, living in fear in the wood, all those years. For Annie, mistreated, abused, and scorned. At least you are a man, not a stupid, vainglorious overgrown, boy. I would not have that sanctimonious little shit Robin Hood to be my son."

"I learnt it from Jamie. She was kind to me, when no one else would be. I miss her, _ma mere. _She wrote to me that she has been wounded. What if she needs me?"

"If she needs you, she will find her way back to you. And we will help her."

"Someday mother, and sooner than you think, you will not have to hide under that scarf and hood. And Jamie will not have to fear a death sentence. Our fortunes will be made. And I will marry Marian, and bring Jamie home, from exile. Isabella, too. Soon, mother, you and I will be avenged."

"As long as your vengeance does not cost me your life, Guy. I would rather have my son than vengeance. But you are very drunk. Go to sleep, now."

"Mother, before I wake, tomorrow, send Annie to Nottingham Castle. Let her take all she wants from the room. See to it Vaisey gives her a respectable position. Tell her that I promise I will visit her. But she can't stay here, any longer. Annie wishes to bring out the worst in me, and that is a man I never want to be."

* * *

_Dear Guy,_

_You must forgive me for not writing for a few months; the Laird has returned from the Crusades._

_He brought me a harem girl's outfit, and for the past month, I have rarely been out of bed._

_But, right now, Connor is unconscious, because we have had a drunken row, he has blacked my eye, and I have hit him over his wooly ginger head with a pot._

_In the morning, he'll be convinced that he got too drunk, and fell down._

_I must say, the only thing worse than my brutal ginger bastard of a Highlander being home, is having him be away._

_How is Her Royal Highness Miss Golden Knickers? Have you groveled at her feet and chewed on the muddy hem of her skirts, and based yourself like a Moslem praying to Muhammad, sufficiently for her to give you a measely below job?_

_Connor says that if he was you, he'd take it, and the girl would be glad for it._

_Marian of Knighton has been drooling over you since she was 12; I agree with Connor._

_But I often agree with Connor; he may be a brute and a bastard, but he is a far better man than Father was, and I start my share of our rows._

_But Scotland is so fucking dreary, Guy!_

_I can't believe that it has been three years since I have seen you. Now that Connor has returned; he can manage this rickety, rocky hellhole of a crumbling old keep. I have told him that as soon as it stops fucking raining, every day, and spring comes that I am going to visit you._

_I have had a letter from Jamie. And she generously sent Connor and I a handsome French pageboy, who enjoyed my company while Connor was away, and has proved to enjoy Connor's and my company, now that my Lout and Husband has returned._

_She has said she's been wounded. Really, Guy, if you can go to the Holy Land and try to kill the king, or whatever your scheme du jour is, you ought to go and fetch Jamie home. _

_You're a clever man, the cleverest man I've ever known; you'll think of some way to keep her safe._

_I will see you in June or July._

_I hope Jamie is home._

_Your other and better half,  
_

_Isabella_

* * *

Vaisey looked over the King's proclamation, and at the rather short, but sturdy young mercenary in front of him.

"Normally, I would not honor anything coming from our King in Exile. But, when Lord Gisbourne, with whom I keep Prince John's law in this shire is drunk enough to fall from his chair, he moans your cousin's name, in his sleep. I have heard much of his Jamie. As well you must know, Blackthorn, Gisbourne is a coiled cobra. He would imbed his fangs in my throat, should I work any harm against the kin of of Jamie, his Jamie."

Vaisey spoke as he wrote out another document, and then signed and sealed it.

"You shall have your Uncle's land, and the monies Richard specified. Would you like to buy a horse to carry you to them? I am an officer of the crown; I will give you a good price."

"I have walked since my horse died beneath me, in the desert, all the way from Jerusalem. A few more leagues won't seem like much. I, thank you, milord Sheriff, for your kindness. But, I am a mercenary, and my loyalty to the King would last only as long as his money did. As would my loyalty to his brother. But it is all but blood between myself any milord Gisbourne. I am sure that he will have something for me to ride on."

Vaisey raised an eyebrow, but Blackthorn's face was implacable.

Gisbourne's was anything but, when Vaisey went to Locksley Manor, to tell him the news.

He swore many oaths, and took off on his horse, leaving the door to his barn and the manor house both ajar.

"You might have told me, Sherriff, and allowed me to tell Sir Guy. I would have spoken in such a way that he did not fly into a rage!"

"There is no way to phrase bad news to your…master….that does not cause him to fly into a rage. Do you think I want to see him angry enough to kill another army of churchmen? But there is little I can do, to stop him, once Guy is enraged. I will leave you to lock up, Mrs. Archer. Myself, I will return to Nottingham Castle; I would not meddle in Gisbourne's affairs, any further."

"But you do not mean that, milord Sheriff."

"How am I meant to take that comment, woman?"

"Any way you see fit, Vaisey."

* * *

Guy was more than suspicious.

He was enraged, and meant to put this impostor to the sword.

He waited for the cover of night, and rode to the ruins of Erik's homestead as if Hell was coming with him.

But, his anger was somewhat stilled, when he saw the travel-stained, battle-worn man-at-arms, squatting by Erik's stone hearth and chimney, which still stood, much as they had ten years before.

Even in profile, by the light of the lantern, he could see the man's resemblance to Erik, and for that matter, to Jamie.

The blacksmith's nephew regarded the handful of Earth that he held in his hand with the same solemnity that Guy, himself, often did.

Jamie's cousin Jim was not a very big man, at all, standing, he would not have even been five feet and five, but he looked a sturdy fellow, of a sturdy build.

He bristled with weapons, and the soldier was likely as tough as they come, bearded too, against the fact that his face was pretty as a woman's.

The man had a blond goatee and moustache, and a very long braid, slung over his shoulder that trailed behind him, onto the ground.

Guy dismounted from his horse, holding his lantern high.

"This is rightfully Jamie Blackthorn's land, soldier. But I can see that you bear a resemblance to her. I know Erik had a brother, in Leicestershire. If you are his son, James, and you can prove it, then I will do you no harm. But if you are an imposter; then I will give you a moment to pray, for whatever God your father has taught you to pray to; you are about to meet him. "

The man stood up, and turning to look at Gisbourne, had a genuine smile for him.

"Lord Gisbourne, you are a sight for sore eyes! You are Lord Gisbourne, now, aren't you, and that bastard father of yours is, at last, in his grave! I am glad to see you, alive and well, and that you are not in the condition my lands are." the man rumbled.

He looked around, genuine sorrow and dismay on his face.

"But where is the blacksmith's headstone? Did they dig up Uncle Erik's poor old bones? What did he do, in death, to anger those angels of Hell!"

Gisbourne really didn't have any friends; the closest thing to a friend that he had was Vaisey, and, Guy did not like to think too much on exactly what Vaisey's feelings towards him were.

So he did not know what made Jim Blackthorn greet him in such a friendly fashion.

Curious, Guy walked closer to the soldier.

"The pious fools excommunicated him, posthumously. They would have burnt his body; I was obliged to dig up his bones, and move them. Do you see, where the flowers are, around the stone monument? That is Erik's grave, now. His friend John Little came, and made that monument of stones. I, meself, come here often. To sit at your Uncle's hearth, as I did, in happier times. I keep the grave tidy, too."

"Did he plant these flowers? John Little?"

"No. I did. Well, my housekeeper did, but at my direction."

"Did you really burn the Bishop and his Inquisitors alive?"

"No. I burnt the Inquisitors, alive. I vivisected the Bishop. With a dull blade. I and burnt him after he was already dead. Their bones and his lie mixed in a pit, under the floor of what's left of the barn. Every time I come here, I take a piss on the graves of the men who took my Jamie from me."

"I will have to see to that. But she's not dead. Jamie, I mean. We get letters from her."

Jim Blackthorn walked back to his Uncle's hearth, and sat in front of it.

Sir Guy put his lantern atop it, and sat down with Blackthorn.

"As do I, Blackthorn. But she might as well be dead; she can't come back to me. To us, I should say. But I will find a way, I promise you, that. And all those who have wronged me, and my family, and my Jamie? They will pay with their money, their land, and their blood."

"That is a powerful curse. Are you sure, Sir Guy, that you do not have the blood of the Danes?"

"My father was a Norman, and they are of Danish blood. My mother was the daughter of a Frankish Norman and an Irish Lord. So I am both Celt and Dane. Vengeance is in my blood." Guy snarled.

Blackthorn laughed.

Guy was taken aback.

He knew that laugh.

The light caught the mercenary in the well-worn studded leather gambeson, and Guy saw something very familiar in his face.

In the whiteness of his skin, the wolfish cast to his pale blue eyes.

And the long braid of butter-yellow hair.

"Jamie? My Jamie?"

Guy whispered the words, afraid that if he spoke them any louder, they could not be true.

She peeled off the false moustache and goatee.

"Your Jamie and no one else's, Guy! God's blood and Odin's eye, I fucking made it! I've limped all the way back from the Holy Land, half-mad, and half feckin' starved, and I made it! I've just come from Ragnar's hiding place, where I buried much of my fortune. But you won't go empty-handed for my adventures. And I found some glory. But mostly war. All across Europe, and the East. Ten years from here to Jerusalem, and back again. Well, I wanted to be a proper Dane. I wanted to see the world, and conquer it. Fortune and glory, indeed. I'm glad to be home. What little is left of it."

"You may be home, Jamie, but how are you safe?"

"Isn't it obvious? I am posing as my cousin Jimmy. That is what the document from Sir Piers that got me passage back to England claims. I visited with him and Uncle Ulric, on my way home, and Jimmy will swear on a stack of Bibles that he is his late brother, Erik, and that James Blackthorn has gone to Nottinghamshire, to reclaim his Uncle Erik's land. I managed to convince you, so, I think it will work."

"I will swear to it! And none in Nottinghamshire would dare publicly challenge my word."

"That's not what I heard from Robin! I stopped in Sherwood, for awhile, after I had word of his fall from grace, his principles, and his new crusade. He asked me to join him. I declined. But, he seems to be much better company, now. And my neighbor. So I'll have to stay friendly with him, I think."

"It's well you didn't join him! For it's either me or Robin. And you can go and practice your so-called raping on someone else! If I wanted my enemy violated, I'd goad Vaisey into it. He's bent, enough! I love you no less, for the years you have been gone, Jamie. I want to carry you into my house, and bathe you, and wash your hair. I would give you sweet wine to drink, and nurse you until you are recovered from the privations of your long journey back to health. I would give you a home, rooms of your own, right next to mine. A place in my household. And when matters are settled, as between John and Richard, I will see to it that you have a stone cottage around this heart, and a stone smithy and a stone barn, of the finest quality. I am Lord Gisbourne, now, and no one can tell me who I should take to my service. Or to my bed. Robin can offer you nothing but his pretty dreams, and a forest any are free to roost in. Take my hand, Jamie. As your master. As your man."

"Did you forget my promise, Guy? I'm your Jamie and no one else's. Always, I've been your Jamie, and no one else's. You don't have to negotiate with me, you Devil! I suppose I'll have to let Robin to his principles, though I'm sure they're not going to do him much good. I can't promise you I'll abandon the silly bugger, now, when he needs me the most! So that his principles don't get him killed! Or you. The two of you have never got along and you've wanted to slaughter each other ever since Richard decided Marian was going to marry you, instead of him. This gives you an excuse! You'll end up dead, face down in a puddle in Sherwood, full of feckin' arrows like a pincushion, and they'll have Robin and half the village of Locksley drawn and quartered, and then what will happen to Marian? You've already won, Guy. You've got the land, the girl, and the money. All Robin has is his principles. Robin's principles. He was always a friend to me, but he never really understood the way the world works. He never will, either. And there's method in you leaving Robin to his madness."

"How, pray tell?" Guy insisted.

"You can't be an absolute tyrant, Guy, or your peasants will slaughter you in your sleep. You've got to let them have something. So, a few rich toffs lose some money and goods they can afford? So what? Keep the peasants happy, Guy. You keep up your charitable activities, adopting poor girls, and keeping rich women with absent husbands happy, and let them have their Robin Hood and a little bit of the loot."

Guy was about to protest, angrily, then he thought about it.

"You have something there, Jamie! So, on one hand, to Vaisey, and Prince John, I am appalled, shocked, and doing all I can to see Hood hang. But, on the other, if he keeps eluding wicked old me, well, that means God and Richard love the peasants. Who knows? Caravans of merchants might pay me, handsomely, for me to send my man Blackthorn along with them. To do my dirty work. You've always done my dirty work admirably well."

"And I've already made arrangements with Robin, to tip him off, for a small fee, for the best pickings. Your rivals and enemies will be less combative after they take a few hits to the purse. You just tell me who to give up. It's all dirty work, Guy. Yours and mine. And that's what mercenary bastards without principles are good at. The hell with John, the hell with Richard, the hell with Robin's movement, the hell with the merchants and the nobles, and the peasants, too. We'll give it to them all, the hard way, and end up with the most important things. Land, money, and power. You keep my secrets, and I'll keep yours. Till death do us part." Jamie finished.

Guy sat back on his arse in the dirt, laughing and shaking his head.

"You call our King by his first name, as if you know him well! I'll bet you do, you wicked Valkyrie of a vixen! Do you think I had not investahated and found that no such man as Sir Piers exists, in Kent?"

"Well, it's like me grandmother always told me. Never fuck for ha'pennies."

"Still, I had heard that Richard was more Queen than King."

Jamie winked, conspiratorially.

"My liege has exotic tastes. A woman dressed up as a man appeals to all of them."

Guy got to his feet, picked his Jamie up, and held her against his chest.

She put her arms around his neck, and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Death will not part us, Jamie. We'll have an eternity, together, in the deepest, hottest firepit in Hell. But while we abide on Earth, we shall be wicked masters of it, indeed."

* * *

Guy took Jamie into Locksley Manor, and closed the door and bolted it.

Locksley Manor was empty, but for his mother, who was asleep.

"Mother! Wake up, Mother! It's my Jamie! She's come back to me!" he cried.

Ghislaine, undisguised and tying shut her dressing gown, hurried down the stairs.

"Is she sick, _ma chere fils_?"

"No."

"Then you should put her down on her legs, and let her walk."

"She limps, Mother."

"My leg is a bit twisted. A Saracen doctor told me the bone needs breaking, again, and to be reset. I would trust no one but you to do it."

"That is simple. But first, you must regain your strength, you look so tired, and worn! Let me look at you, Jamie. _Pauvre petite_, you are so thin! And how is it safe for you to have returned, at all?"

Jamie explained to Ghislaine, about the ruse she and Sir Piers had cooked up, and that was when Guy realized that he had revealed his mother's secret to Jamie.

But she didn't seem surprised and Ghislaine did not seem flustered.

"Mother, did you reveal yourself to Jamie, when we were small, evem before you told me who you were?" Guy asked.

"I knew Mrs. Archer was your Mum, from the time we were small, without her saying anything. You two have the same eyes. And the same nose, for that matter. But I imagined she had a good reason for not telling you that she was your Mum. And as long as Mrs. Archer acted like a Mum to both of us, I didn't see why I should upset the apple cart." Jamie explained.

"Don't bother yourself with trivialities, Guy! Our Jamie is home, and safe. I will help you keep your secret, Jamie. I will make clothes for you, to make you look more of a man, and help you, each morning, with binding your breast. Guy, go and feed the fire on the hearth, and heat some water, for Jamie's bath. I'll go and make something to eat. You must let me cook for you, Jamie, so you can become healthy, again, and not just fat. Then, when you are stronger, I will fix your twisted leg. Well? I see no water on the hearth, Guy!"

* * *

After her meal, Guy insisted on carrying Jamie up the stairs.

"I can walk, Guy! After all, you and I both grew up to be big, strong men, eating your Mum's cooking."

"You have walked a long way. And don't say that you're a man! I don't find it funny."

"You had better learn to."

"I am not going to give you longing looks when you are wearing a crepe beard and moustache, with two pairs of hose shoved down your breeches!"

"It's not two pairs of hose! It's a proper cock, or what passes for one. Made of wood, and bound in leather. For Saracen women who's husbands have too many wives to see to them, often enough. I had it made to measure. From my fond memories of your exact measurements. Length, and girth. Since I had my choice, I thought I'd be as fine a man as you."

"Should I be flattered?"

"Yes."

Guy opened the door of his bedchamber and carried Jamie over the threshold, as if it was their wedding night.

"I have never brought a woman, to my chamber, or to my bed, Jamie. I love you, I have never, I will never love another woman, the way I love you. You will never leave my side again. I would die before I let anyone harm you, and I would kill you before I let you leave me. Tell me that you love me, Jamie. I know you think the words mean nothing, but I have to hear you say them!"

"Guy, I limped all the way home from Jerusalem on my twisted leg when I could have stayed with King Richard, himself, a Captain in his army. I had War, and Fortune, and Glory. Would I have given them all the heave-ho as soon as he wrote out my passage back to England, if I didn't love you?

"Is that all he would have given you? I will be all but King Richard's son-in-law, once I am married to Marian. I will give you England, Jamie."

"What would I do with it? All I ever wanted was my father's land, and now that it's mine? That's enough of England for me. You and your Jean-Thomas are a couple of insatiable greedy pricks, I'll say that for you."

"And they could have sawed off your leg, for all I care, as long as my Lady Jane has not been harmed. Even though you are a good woman, with a good head on her shoulders, I can't say the same for Lady Jane. She is as much a greedy, insatiable whore as I am used to. As I am. And double goes for Jean-Thomas."

Jamie laughed, and began shedding her clothes.

Guy looked up at the ceiling.

"I take it all back. You do have some Mercy in you, _Monsieur_."

"Guy, why are you thanking God for me taking my kit off?"

"You don't know the hell that Marian has put me through, these ten years since we were bethrothed! God has never made a more ruthless and determined cock-tease than Marian of Knighton."

"You mean she's still saving herself for your wedding night! Oh no! Poor you, Guy, and poor Robin, too! No wonder you've both lost your minds. But never fear! Jamie is here!" she laughed.

Jamie leaned over, unbuckled Guy's belt, and yanked the lace right out of his breeches, as he was removing his tunic.

"Now, let's say that I was sweet little Miss Maid Marian, all aflutter with naked nuptial lust. Ten years I've been dreaming about your great big, magnificent cock and your manly, gorgeous body. Oh Guy, I lie awake in my cold little bed at night, and I dream about you putting your hands and your mouth all over my quivering body! My love, my Lord and husband, my Devil, make me your witch. Defile me!"

Jamie rolled over on her back, and threw her hand over her eyes.

"Defile me, violate me, ravish me! Penetrate every wet, quivering, hungry fuck-hole in my poor body with your brutal huge throbbing cock! But for heavens sake,your tongue and your fingers first, if you please!"

She laughed.

"Too much?"

"No. But you don't sound anything like Marian."

"Perhaps I've confessed too much."

Guy got into his bed.

"No. I already know what you want. But I do love to hear you say it. By God and the Devil both, my Jamie, I love you!" Guy told her.

"They got together, and made me, just for you." She replied.

Jamie reached for Guy, and pulled him down into her hair.

Guy closed his eyes, and held Jamie's body close to his, inhaling her sweet scent, reveling in the embrace of her strong arms and her round, white thighs, and the softness of all her butter-yellow hair, spread all across his body, and his bed.

"Jamie. My Jamie!" he moaned.

* * *

In the morning, however, Jamie, his Jamie , looked much the worse for wear.

The night before, in the firelight, she had seemed not so much altered by the privations of her trip, especially after he had bathed her, and washed her hair.

But, in the light of day, while she was yet asleep, she looked terrible; the privations of her long journey home etched in her body and her face.

It made him feel guilty that he had made love to Jamie, well, no, to be quite honest he had fucked her, both greedily and insatiably, for half the night, and in such a way that put any of his performances with witchy Annie to shame.

In the night, in the fury of his passion and his lust and his gratitude to have her restored to him, his Jamie, and always nobody's Jamie but his, he had not really noticed.

But he could see now that her body that was once all curves was wasted in places down to the hard muscle and sinew that always lay beneath them, and there were purplish circles under her eyes.

He could see some of her ribs, and a clear outline of both her wide set hipbones.

And Jamie's left leg, at the calf had broken badly and healed crookedly, which produced that limp.

It must have given her a great deal of pain, to walk on it, after he lost the horse Richard had given her.

Guy felt terribly guilty, and promised himself he would hold his passion for Jamie in check, until she was stronger.

But after he fell back to sleep Guy awoke only to find Jamie up to her old Danish tricks, and she was on top of him, with him suffused in her long butter yellow hair.

Gingerly, he put his arms around her.

"What's this? All night long, you fucked me like I was your witch of witches, and I gave asbgood as I got, and now that it's as fine a morning for as fine a fuck as I've been ten years of mornings dreaming of, you act like I'm made of glass that might break? I've had a few hard knocks, and lost a stone and a half, or so; it's nothing! I'll soon fatten up, on regular meals, as my lord Gisbourne's vassal, dining every night on venison and mutton! Not to mention sausage, which I hope to have for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and tea!"

"You shouldn't waste what little strength you have in your body, Jamie. And I should not have wasted it for you."

Jamie laughed her wild, mocking laugh at him.

It was music to Sir Guy's ears.

"I'll lay your body to waste! What? Me, weak? I've had a decent meal, a drink, a bath, a damn good fucking and a good night sleep in bed with a damn good bad man! I feel strong as an ox and horny as a bear! Like I was sitting on top of the world! But, in these parts, I suppose I am. Sitting on top of my Lord Gisbourne, I can aspire to no higher state!"

"Why do I love it when you mock me, Jamie, when what I hate most in the world is to be mocked?"

"Because you know I don't mean it the way the rest of them do. Now, shut up and take it like a man. And then it'll be your turn to be on top. Unless you had something to get out of bed for. Or someone."

"Let them all go fuck themselves, my Jamie. Now that you're here, I'll be a very busy man, who has pressing business to take care of, right here at home."

* * *

A whole week went by, and Marian did not receive and invitation from Guy to have dinner.

She arrived on her usual night, and Mrs. Archer let her in.

Guy was already eating, and already half-drunk, with his feet up on the table, laughing up a storm with Blackthorn, Jamie's cousin, whom he had hired to be his man-at –arms.

People had been whispering, and Marian could see why.

Their great intimacy seemed to hint at something more than two men who were master and vassal, or even friends.

But Marian knew Guy's lost Jamie almost as well as she knew Guy.

She stalked across the room, kicked Blackthorn's feet from the table and yanked at his moustache and goatee.

Guy laughed so hard he tumbled out of his chair.

"Odds fish, I am caught red-handed! You have me now, Marian, for my man-at-arms is no man at all, but my mistress!" he mocked her.

Jamie loosened her jerkin, unknotted something behind her back and then pulled the cotton band from her breasts out from under her tunic.

"That's better. Don't think Guy's bent, Marian. I only had my disguise on because you were coming over. Now, give me back my goatee and moustaches."

"Guy! People can tell! They're saying you like men, too!'

"What do you care? You love Robin, and you've not fucked Guy." Jamie told her.

"We are not yet married!"

"So? I'll never be married to the hellbound son of the Devil, and I've fucked him ten times this week and it's only Wednesday."

Guy lay on his back on the ground, wheezing, helplessly.

"Jamie!"

"What? Come on, Guy, quite rolling around on the ground. Hello, Marian. It's good to see you, again. We have so much to talk about. But not in front of our Guy."

"What? What are you going to talk about?"

"Things that women don't say in front of men." Jamie explained.

"Well, then, Jamie, I shall come to see you at your father's hearth. Tomorrow, at noontime. After I come back from visiting with Robin."

Marian looked to Guy, but he hadn't been listening.

"But I'll go, for now! The two of you are already drunk, and I suppose you will be naked, before long, right here on the table. I won't want to be around for that!"

Marian turned on her heel.

"Don't go, my little Marian! I can satisfy the lusts of two women at one time; I have, amny times. And I would not expect the two of you, as you're not so inclined, even to look atone another!" Guy shouted after her.

"I'll see you tomorrow!" Jamie said.

Marian left in a huff.

"Did you see the look on her face? Miss Marian of Knighton, she's not so high and mighty now, since the boot's on the other foot. And now she'll go and prick-tease Locskley until his bollocks are blue and ache as badly as his weary head! I almost feel sorry for the miserable little prick." Guy told Jamie.

Mrs. Archer came and sat with them.

"You were both very rude to Marian! Jamie, I am surprised at you, you are her closest confidante! And Guy, Marian is all but your wife!" she corrected them.

But then she winked, slyly, as she poured herself a glass of wine.

"Then again, I think she needed to come down from her high horse, which she has so long ridden roughshod over my poor boy's bones. But don't you two dare make love on my table! I will never get it clean! This is a manor house, not a whorehouse!" she chastised them.

"The table's too high and Jamie is too short." Guy replied.

"I don't want to know. Guy! _Qu'est-que c'est?_ Get your dirty boots off my table!"

"Yes, _ma mere_."

"Go, both of you, go upstairs. You are drunk, and you have only one thing on your mind. Go, now, before one of you passes out, and I have to go and get Jack from the gamekeeper's cottage, to help me carry you upstairs!"

Ghislane spoke sternly to them, but after they left, she smiled to herself, as she cleared the table.

Later, she went to the gamekeeper's cottage, anyway.

Guy had been gentlemanly enough not to ask who this Jack Doyle fellow was, and why he would make such a good gamekeeper.

Well, Jack was a good gamekeeper.

She told him the whole story, and they both had a good laugh.


End file.
